TheatreWorks has nabbed the first post-Broadway production of Grey Gardens for its 39th season, which will also include the world premiere musical Long Story Short as well as works by Stephen Schwartz, August Wilson and John Patrick Shanley.

Christine Ebersole will take Grey Gardens to the West End.
Photo by Joan Marcus

The Palo Alto, CA, company announced its 2008-09 season, which will play the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts and the Lucie Stern Theatre.

The new TheatreWorks season (subject to change) follows:

Snapshots (June 18-July 13) Conceived by Michael Scheman and David Stern Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, book by David Stern Artistic director Robert Kelley stages a newly revised production of the musical, which "combines some of Schwartz's most cherished hits... from Wicked, Pippin and Godspell with new songs."

Doubt, A Parable (July 16-Aug. 10) By John Patrick Shanley The Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play about a nun who suspects a priest of wrongdoing.

Grey Gardens (Aug. 20-Sept. 14) Book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, lyrics by Michael Korie Based on the film "Grey Gardens," the musical centers on notorious recluses Edith and Edie Bouvier Beale, aunt and cousin to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Radio Golf (Oct. 8-Nov. 2) By August Wilson Aldo Billingslea (The Elephant Man) will stage the cycle-closing drama set in Pittsburgh in the late 1990s, following "a successful entrepreneur [who] aspires to become the city's first black mayor, but when the past begins to catch up with him, secrets are revealed that could undo everything."

Long Story Short (Dec. 3-28) Book, music and lyrics by Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda (of GrooveLily) Based on the play An Infinite Ache by David Schulner, and directed by Tracy Brigden, this co-world premiere (with City Theatre in Pittsburgh) is billed as a "roller-coaster romance [that] examines the life-cycle of a relationship from first date through old age. It retraces a brief encounter between two 20-somethings which develops into a love affair that lasts a lifetime."

Twentieth Century (Jan. 14-Feb. 8, 2009) By Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur Ken Ludwig (Lend Me a Tenor) adapts the show-business tale, based on a play by Charles Bruce Milholland, set on the title's "legendary locomotive" in the 1930s.

It Ain't Nothin' But The Blues (March 11-April 5, 2009) By Charles Bevel, Lita Gaithers, Randal Myler, Ron Taylor and Dan Wheetman The musical "journey in song" goes "from African chants and Delta spirituals to the urban electricity of a Chicago nightclub and the twang of a country juke joint, [in] this stirring retrospective of blues classics summons the soul of American music."

Distracted (April 1-26, 2009) By Lisa Loomer "From the playwright of Living Out and The Waiting Room, and the screenplay for the 1999 film "Girl, Interrupted" comes a provocative new work that explores the world of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and the unconventional path one mother takes to help her anxious son." Subscriptions to the season at TheatreWorks are available by calling (650) 463-1960 or toll-free at (888) 273-3752. Single tickets go on sale June 1. For more information about the company, visit theatreworks.org.